Re: [PATCH] cheap lookup of symbol names on oops()

Cort Dougan
2002-07-25T22:27:17Z

I've had the stack backtrace cause cascading oops' that scroll until I
power a machine off. It's a crash - things aren't always going to work
out. Arguments like that can be made to remove nearly the entire oops
message.

The patch as it is now doesn't even add a line of text to the x86 oops
message. It does add a line to the PPC oops message though. I understand,
and agree with, the need for brevity in a oops.

Would you be happy with the lookup function as a config option rather than
the default?

} I recently had an oops on my laptop with a rh kernel with I think this
} stuff in (it decoded the trace to symbols, etc).
}
} The only problem was that the machine paniced at the end, with the
} register dump off the top of the screen. The only thing visible was
} the trace.
}
} As useful as it was to have the trace, the oops was useless because
} the rest of the information was missing.
}
} So why didn't I scroll up? Because shift-pgup needs a task queue to
} run, which doesn't happen after a panic, just like you can't ctrl-alt-del
} to reboot (but you can alt-sysrq-b)...
}
} Personally, I'd much rather have the standard oops output and be able
} to scribble down the numbers, and then look them up than to have some
} snazzy bit of code in the kernel do it for me and scroll the useful
} information off the screen.
}
} (And thanks for reminding me about the oops...)
}
} --
} Russell King (rmk@arm.linux.org.uk) The developer of ARM Linux
} http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/personal/aboutme.html